


Taking a Licking

by C31PO (SirenAlpha)



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2018-11-28 05:35:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11411310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SirenAlpha/pseuds/C31PO
Summary: Marie-Claude has played the Penguins before. This, however, is the first time she's played them as the Flyers' top center since Crosby came back from concussion. She maybe needs a new strategy to ensure she wins the face offs.AKA how to make it through a rivalry playoff series without hating the other guys' captain





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the combination of two things: one, I hate having Crosby be the aag!player that breaks open the glass ceiling for women in hockey so this is a universe where women broke in around the time of Title IX and still have trouble getting into the league, and two, is it possible for there to be a version of the 2012 pens v flyers playoffs where Claude doesn't blame Crosby for his wrists
> 
> and also I have always have a huge thing for genderbends anyways, and I like playing with couple dynamics like this, and I wanted to try out something that was a little more on ice than off ice for once, and I like Claude for genderbending (the reasons for all this are way too long for a note so)
> 
> WARNING: I know swear words usually just get put into the T category but I've got like overtly sexual chirping going on but no one takes their pants off so I've left it T for now, but if anyone finds that to be a problem just let me know

Marie-Claude watches as Crosby looks her over.

“They’ve got you up against me?” he asks.

She’s not impressed. This is only his third game back from concussion, and he could go right out again. A stiff wind could probably beat him. He didn’t say it with particular heat, probably just something to try and knock her off her game before the start, but she gives him her new usual. “Lick my clit, Crosby.”

If she has to hear every goddamn dude in the NHL go on about their teeny tiny dicks, they can stand to hear about her anatomy.

He looks confused for a moment then looks her over like he can see underneath her pads. She’s seen those looks before, too. She doesn’t really care for them on the ice.

“Guess that’s better than getting told to suck dick,” he muses.

She guesses neither of them are successful in knocking each other off their game. Usually, even mentioning a clitoris is enough to make guys confused for a lot longer. She’s not surprised to hear a guy nicknamed Cindy by other douchebags in the league has been told to suck dick like she has, though. They face off without a hitch.

The Flyers win in OT, and that’s enough for her against Crosby. When she spots him looking at her as they’re leaving the ice she prays the cameras aren’t on her and displays her tongue to him as a reminder of her chirp.

He definitely sees it, and he quickly looks away. She doesn’t know if it’s Catholic propriety or what, but it makes her laugh. It’s too bad she doesn’t even have another female teammate to laugh about how men can’t even take a slight reference to female genitalia.

At their next meeting with the Penguins, she doesn’t know why the first thing she does in front of Crosby is exaggeratedly lick her lips. That’s a lie. Crosby is one of the few guys in the league that she finds good looking, in a weird hockey kind of way. She’d never do a guy on her team, but that leaves Crosby free if he ever thought about her. It makes it thrilling to see him blush like he’s a virgin.

She still has a job to do, though. “You ever let anyone near that ass of yours, Crosby?”

He makes a perturbed face at the mention of his ass.

“It looks ripe for spanking,” she adds.

He gets annoyed, and it’s enough to throw him off his game. She laughs as she passes him. He gives her a shove in response. It’s fine because she totally deserves it.

Then comes the playoffs, and of course their first round is against the Penguins now that they have Crosby back. Crosby is also on like he wasn’t during the regular season.

“Lick my clit,” she snaps at him because she is angry at him and he’s just so unfair and her wrists ache like crazy because that’s what a hockey season does to you.

“Sure,” he returns. “You just gotta spread you legs.”

“Woah,” she says and laughs nastily, pissed because it actually sounds hot. Who wouldn’t want a jawline like that between their thighs? She hadn’t expected it because no other guy had come up with a response yet. “How long did you have to work to come up with that?”

He shrugs and it’s nowhere near as casual as he probably wants it to come off. He might have a chirp at the ready but he’s still not smooth. “As long as it takes you to get off.”

Motherfucker. She doesn’t have the time to come up with a good response before the faceoff and he knows it. She’s a bit of a slow burner when it comes to orgasming, but even then it doesn’t take her the length between their games. She can’t even say a quick ‘faster than you’ because that would actually be good for him. She hates not having the last word, and she especially hates his smug, self-satisfied look.

They win in OT again, and she figures that works pretty well for a last word with Crosby. She still shows him her tongue as they’re leaving. He doesn’t look away. She smirks.

The media starts to craft a rivalry narrative between Marie-Claude and Crosby. She finds it a little amusing and a lot flattering. Who would have thought that little Marie-Claude Giroux from middle of nowhere Ontario would get chosen as the rival for Sidney Crosby. She’s not even the captain of her team or a first overall pick. It’s not like she’s Ovechkin, but she is good and that’s what matters.

At their next game, she catches Crosby with his tongue hanging out. It’s only the tip, hidden away at the corner of his lips, but he smirks and she knows it’s for her.

“Gonna need more than just the tip,” she tells him, meaning his tongue. The way his eyebrows climb suggests he’s thinking of his dick. Either works.

The puck drops. She wins it. The Flyers win eight to five, and three of the goals are hers. She has no problem at the end of the game standing where Crosby can see her with her legs a little wide. When she catches his eye, she nods down towards herself. He can’t seem to help taking a look before shaking his head and storming off.  

Towards the start of their next game, she skates close to him before their face off, completely casual. “I know you’ve had some head injuries, but how’s your jaw?”

He turns to follow her as she skates around him. “My jaw?”

“What? Your tongue can’t handle all the action,” she says, gesturing to her crotch the way the guys do, too quick for the camera, but obvious and offensive from the ice.

He startles, making a noise somewhere between a scoff and a snort. “My jaw’s fine. Why, you shave for me?”

She says nothing for a moment, letting him get comfortable thinking he’s had the last word as they ready for the puck to drop. “Thought you of all people’d know. You don’t shave for playoffs, dumbass.”

His eyes come off the puck, and it’s enough. She wins the draw, and she can see how pissed he is. He glares at her after the play, and he has to be at least as mad at himself as he is at her. She can’t help one last comment as she passes him as she heads to the bench. “By the way, the carpets do match the drapes.

He clenches his jaw, and she laughs as she skates away. He can’t back down now, say he doesn’t need to know that about her. It would be losing.

The game quickly descends into a clusterfuck, though it probably had to be expected with their two teams. She knows better than to get in too close to any of the little fighting matches that start cropping up. The unspoken rule of guys should try not to fight the gals won’t keep her safe from shit in a rivalry playoff game.

Then she and Crosby are behind the Flyers’ net battling for the puck. He checks her, and she shoves back, and Bryz gets the puck. Instead of backing off though, Crosby shoves her back as the whistle blows. Her boys are immediately reaching for him, trying to pull him off her and jostling them both. The ref gets an arm between them, knocking her back against the glass.

“Keep your hands off me, or I’m going for your dick,” she threatens.

“With what? Your mouth?”

She snarls at him. “With my skate blade.”

“That’s enough,” the ref says, beginning to pull Crosby away. “No one’s going to do any dismembering.”

“He’d deserve it,” she says.

“You can’t know that, now let go,” the ref commands. Crosby releases her jersey and the refs pull them apart.

Her anger isn’t all gone though. When the refs release them she follows after Crosby. “How rude,” she chirps. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you how to treat a girl?”

“Don’t think my mom ever included a girl like you in those lessons,” he retorts, dodging a ref to continue following her.

“Those lessons were all about girls like me. I’m a good Catholic girl.”

“Not with how dirty your mouth is.”

“I’m not the one offering up my mouth for oral sex to a rival.”

He skates in close enough that she has to look up to face him. “I’m not the one dying to get eaten out. None of your boys good enough for you? Need someone better to be satisfied?”

She pushes his chest to put some space between them. A ref notices and gets his hands on their shoulders.

“Better isn’t a prude little Catholic boy like you. Could you even find a clit without help?” she shoots back at him.

The ref looks at her like she’s lost her mind. She rolls her eyes at him. “Shut up. You hear dick a hundred times a night. I can talk about anyone’s clit I want.”

The ref starts turning red. “Keep your comments to yourself, missy.”

“Don’t worry. They’re not for you.”

Marie-Claude usually was on good terms with the Philly refs, but honestly, they could be as bad as the other players sometimes. Hearing clit won’t kill them.

“Just get in position,” he growls, shoving both her and Crosby along.

Marie-Claude is still completing her loop to get in position when she hears Kimmo shout, “Hey!”

She spins around to see Kimmo and Crosby grappling at each other’s shoulders. She knows it’s a bad idea to get involved, but she yanks on the back of Crosby’s sweater anyways. He turns on her automatically, grabbing and pinning her arms. “Oh, fucking back off, Giroux. You’re just gonna get crushed.”

She doesn’t like being so close or him having his hands on her when there are plenty of Penguins around who would like to fight her. She does what she can to grab a hold of him then knees him as hard as she can above his cup. She moves to back away because she doesn’t expect the hit to drop him, but he manages to hang onto her with one hand as he doubles over from the pain, cussing up a storm. She snaps, “Told you to keep your hands off.”

“That doesn’t mean you knee me, Christ,” he says, hooking his arms around her in something like a headlock as he straightens up. “You’re just a fucking riot, aren’t you?”

“If you’d backed off it wouldn’t have been a problem,” she argues, tugging uselessly on his arm.

“You’re the one who decided to get involved in the fight.”

“Let her go, Crosby. You won’t get any glory out of fighting her,” a ref says as he skates up to him.

“Sure if you give her a penalty for fucking kneeing me.”

“You’re both getting penalties for roughing,” he says, tapping on Crosby’s arm. “Off to the penalty box for both of you.”

Crosby makes a noise of disgust then says, “Fine.”

He lets her go, grabbing up his stick and gloves on the way to the box. Marie-Claude straightens out her jersey then grabs her stick and heads to the Flyers’ penalty box. She could be upset with the penalty, but she was just relieved that she hadn’t come out any worse from her first fight.  

“You’re such a fucking jackass,” Crosby shouts at her as she gets into the box. He’s sitting all the way over in the Penguins’ sin bin, but she can hear him just fine over the howling fans. “You know that hit was bullshit.”

“Hit?” Jake asks as she sits down beside him.

“Yeah, you didn’t see our little tussle?” she asks, and he shakes his head. She turns back to Crosby. “It wasn’t a hit. It was a knee!”

He scowls at her. “Don’t play fucking dumb. You don’t fucking knee a guy in a fight. That’s below the belt!”

She shrugs because it doesn’t bother her at all. “If you weren’t such an idiot maybe you’d know that’s only true between guys. You think I’m dumb enough to break my hand trying to punch your pads? No, I’ll knee you where you’re soft!”

“It’s fucking unsportsmanlike!”

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not a man. I was unsportsmanlike to begin with!” she shouts back at him then adds, “Only people with dicks worry about honor!”

“Fuck you!” he shouts then turns away, fuming.

Jake laughs and asks, “So you won the fight?”

“I think so,” she says, pulling of her helmet. It’s nice to get some air on her sweat soaked hair.

“That’s our girl,” he says, patting her on the back.

They turn back to the refs and jumbotron to figure out who is getting what penalties and when to be prepared to come out again.

Crosby plays far less gently against her after that. She hadn’t known how he’d been playing before had been gentle. Now, he slashes at her during every face off, going for her already aching wrists. She knows this is the playoffs, but it seems unnecessarily brutal. Or maybe guys have been going easy on her all along, which she doubts. Guys like Crosby never half ass, not with the cup on the line.

She fumes on the bench between shifts, trying to figure out how best to deal with it. She has half an idea that might work, but it can’t be worse than doing nothing. Maybe she doesn’t get him to stop slashing, but if she wins a few draws that’s fine.

“You really that hurt, Cros?” she asks, getting a little friendly with her chirps. “Can’t take a girl in a fight?”

He glares at her, already in position for the face off. “Fucking take the face off, Giroux.”

“Okay,” she says mockingly. She settles herself down into position. She doesn’t win it. She needs to step up.

The opportunity comes in the next period. She forces herself to get a little closer to Crosby than she’s comfortable with to make her point. “Didn’t your mama ever teach you to use your words and not pull on my pigtails?”

“Don’t know why you still think my mother would ever talk about a girl like you,” he snaps, watching her carefully.

“It’s not about girls like me,” she says as she gets into position and waiting for the best moment to say, “It’s about girls you like.”

She loses the face off, but the play finishes in the Penguins’ zone. Crosby skates up close to her. “I don’t like you.”

“Of course not, big boy,” she says, half hating the words coming out of her mouth and half thrilled that she gets to say this type of shit to Crosby. “You just wanna lick my clit.”

It gets him good and pissed off exactly like she wants him to be.

“Jesus,” Hartsy says to her when they’re on the bench. “What the hell are you telling Crosby to make him so pissed? It’s gotta be filthy.”

She shrugs. “I didn’t think telling him to lick my clit was all that dirty.”

Hartsy chokes a little. “Shit, that’s what’s got him pissed? Didn’t think he was that goddamn prissy.”

She laughs. “That’s not what’s got him worked up. He’s fine with eating me out. He just doesn’t want me to imply that he likes me.”

“No,” he says, sounding shocked. “Thought he’d be one of those fucking missionary in the dark types. How does that whole liking thing work out though? That makes no fucking sense.”

She shakes her head. “I think it bothers him.”

“Woah, do you mean in like a hot and bothered kinda way? Holy shit, you think he’s into you?” Hartsy says. “I’ll kick his ass.”

“No, I think he’s really fucking uncomfortable with me using sexual tension against him. Guys aren’t used to that, you know.”

“You make it sound like you guys got a thing.”

“It wouldn’t work any better than saying suck my dick if there wasn’t a thing.”

“Hey, G,” he says, sounding a little more serious. “Just don’t mix business and pleasure, you know?”

She rolls her eyes. “We’re entertainers. We’re all about pleasure.”

Her goal early in the third makes her think they’ll make it out of the game scot-free. It all goes wrong when Neal takes Coots down, and he has to be escorted off the ice. She gets sent out to take his place. Pittsburgh wins it, but they eventually get the puck and go tearing down the ice. She accepts a pass, stick handles around a defenceman who drops to the ice, gets her eyes on the net then gets slammed into.

The slam into her shoulder and head sends her spinning like a top. It gives her whiplash. She tries to stop her head spinning then her feet as she realizes they’re getting away from her. She drops to the ice and clumsily pulls herself up again. She steers clear of some shoving and gets herself onto the bench as another fight breaks out behind her.  

She takes off her helmet to help get her head back together. She’ll let the refs deal with all the other shit.

“We’ll fucking get Neal,” Read assures her. “There’s no way we’re gonna let them get close to winning this game.”

Marie-Claude isn’t too worried about that. There’s only a few minutes left on the clock and far too solid of a lead.

At the end of the game, she doesn’t pester Crosby for once.

Media before the next game seems normal, all questions about their hockey and if they feel good, and then they get asked, “What’s your response to Sidney Crosby saying he didn’t like anyone on the team?”

“Well, we must be doing something right if he hates us,” she says.

“Yes, he mentioned you specifically,” the reporter continues. “Said you were the worst of them, meaning the Flyers.”

That sends some titters through the crowd. Crosby isn’t typically so touchy-feely with the press so Marie-Claude gets it. He must be really riled up, and she wants to keep that going. “Aw, that’s so sweet of him. I like you, too, Sidney.”

She spots a camera directed at her and winks at it. She’s not totally sure it’ll reach Crosby, but she can hope. It gets a good laugh out of a number of reporters at least.

“So you’re not worried about him in the upcoming games?” another reporter asks.

She shrugs. “We’ll be prepared for whatever the Penguins want to throw at us.”

The Penguins are a little more together in the fourth game, more desperate and determined. The Flyers hang on through the first, but start getting crushed in the second. Crosby ignores all her needling and keeps a level head. He’s still a little needlessly aggressive so maybe there’s something still there for her to work with.  

“Got some anger to work out, Crosby?” she asks him before a face off. “I know a better way to get that out off ice.”

She twists her hips to guide his attention to the right place. He looks even though her hockey pants make her look as boxy as any other dude on the ice.

He shakes his head. “Back to lick your clit? Then what? You suck my dick?”

She actually doesn’t give a shit about blowjobs. Guys are such assholes about them that it makes it easy to pick out who to stay away from, and that’s most of them. Still, she tilts her head and gets in a little closer to Crosby and asks, “Been thinking about my mouth, Cros?”

“Not on your life, Giroux,” he spits at her, but she can see the color rising in his cheeks.

It’s something, but not enough to stop the absolute trainwreck that is a 10-3 loss. When she looks over to Crosby, he sticks his tongue against the inside of his cheek, mirroring what she’d done to him in previous games. She’s not Crosby though. She doesn’t blush or turn away. She stares back coolly, and he turns away first.

Things don’t get any better once she gets home. She gets a glass of water, carrying it around with her despite the trouble in her wrists. The glass slips from her grasp. She’s lucky it doesn’t break apart when it hits the ground before her bare feet. She drops down to pick it up and ignore what this implies about how bad her wrists are.

Something about being down on the ground makes it all worse. She completely drops her hands and sits down hard, letting the pain get the better of her. She sits there and cries about the pain and how fucked up her hands must be until she can get a deep breath in and shove it all away again. She picks up the glass with both hands and puts it in the sink. There’s not enough water on the floor to worry about cleaning up so she forgets it and goes to bed.

She goes to see the trainers in the morning. They want to give her braces for her wrists, but they don’t have anything in her size. She has to wait for the order to come in, and who knows how long that will be. She tries not to get mad at them about it, but honestly she’s been on the team for some time now. They could have gotten stuff in her size long ago.

She’s furious for a win, wanting to beat back the humiliations she’s suffered. She doesn’t tease Crosby. She fights him in words because she can’t win a fist fight.

“Get fucked,” she throws at him as they battle against the boards for the puck.

And he must be feeling good because he says, “No thanks.”

She gets the puck out and sends it along to her boy to get it set up for a shot. A Pens player dashed through and intercepts it. In the small moment between completely deflating from losing the puck to skating her ass back down the ice, Crosby leans in close to her ear and tells her, “Get fucked.”

She’ll be damned if it’s by him or his team. The Flyers come close, but they don’t win it. Now they are only up one, and Marie-Claude wants nothing to do with a game 7.

She goes straight to Laviolette. “I want the first shift.”

He stares at her for a moment then nods. “It’s yours.”

The first thing she does after taking the faceoff is slam into Crosby. She embraces the flood of vicious joy she feels in knocking him onto his ass. His legs tangle with hers, dragging her down. She gets up quicker, but Bryz stops play by picking up the puck. Another face off, Jags attempts to get it up, a Pens player knocks the puck, and she darts in and grabs it. She heads straight for the Pens’ net and shoots. The puck gets in behind Fleury.  

She screams in victory. She raises up her hands as the crowd cheers. Her boys come in for a hug, telling her how good her hands are and how beautiful the shot was.

It maybe makes her a little too cocky. She has to pass Crosby to get back to the bench. She gets closer than she ever dares to and bumps her chest against his – well, her chest and more like his stomach. “How did that feel, Cros? Getting on your back for me.”

He looks surprised for a second that she even touched him. He looks her over again the way he had that first time they faced off, like he wants to see her, not her uniform. Then he seems to come back to himself. “Not for you, because of you.”

He turns to the side, puts a hand on the small of her back, and pushes her towards her bench. The Pens players laugh. She skates the rest of the way under her own power.

“At least he acted like a gentlemen there,” Hartsy says when she takes a seat next to him. “I still kinda want to kick his ass.”

“I won’t stop you,” she says.

“Cool.”

“Whose ass are you gonna kick?” Danny B asks.

“Crosby’s,” Hartsy answers cheerfully. “He’s got the hots for our G. Wanna make sure he treats her right.”

“I thought G had that covered with her knee,” Danny says.

Harsty laughs. “Then I’m back up.”

“Not sure I need back up with Crosby,” Marie-Claude says.

“Why’s that?” Hartsy asks.

“He’s a softie,” she explains. “But if you wanna kick his ass that’s up to you.”

He looks up to check the clock. “If I get time, I’ll do it.”

Marie-Claude gives him an assist for a goal rather than an opening to fight Crosby. Hartsy gives her an exuberant kiss on her cheek when she brings it in for a hug, and she laughs.

During the intermission, Coach reminds them to stay sharp and not let the Penguins have any chances of climbing back into the lead. So she stays doggedly after Crosby, doing her best to check him and keep him off the puck. He pushes back against her.

“You must really want me to lay you out on your back,” he hisses at her after she gets the puck away from him.

“No, I want to have a seat on your jaw.”

He stares at her wide eyed and flushed. She sends him a smile she doesn’t bother to feign as innocent and skates off after her teammates. Crosby stays quiet after that, and she hopes it means he doesn’t have a good comeback.  Although, him being into that isn’t the worst thing in the world.

The Pens don’t come close to catching the Flyers, and they finish the series in game 6. Marie-Claude can’t keep the smile off her face. They line up for handshakes, and she tells the Pens players good game even when she doesn’t mean it. She only hesitates for a moment before shaking Crosby’s hand, feeling a little uncertain now that his season is over.

“Good game,” she tells him, and his hand engulfs hers, but that’s not unusual.

He pulls her in towards him, and she prepares to back her way out of a hug because that’s not what she wants. Instead, he only pats her on her nearest shoulder. “I’ll be looking forward to you in the fall.”

She nods because she doesn’t know what to say and moves onto the next guy in line. She keeps it together until she gets off the ice and breaks out into giggles. She gets a couple weird looks, but come on, Sidney Crosby actually liking her is a little funny.

The media asks her only one question about Crosby after the game. "Do you believe your rivalry with the Penguins has been strengthened by this series? Any final comments on your growing rivalry with Crosby?"

"Yeah, sure, the rivalry between our teams is a good one, and I think series like this are some of the most fun to play. As for Crosby, ah, I wasn't kidding about liking him. He never did or said anything worse than I gave him. Low bar," she admits with a shrug. "But he's still one of only a few guys in the league that even reaches it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this little experiment!
> 
> Other notes are:  
> \- I picked the name Marie-Claude in honor of Marie-Philip Poulin (and I imagine they end up bros someday in this universe)  
> \- this is like my 5th version of trying to make Cheesby happen with aag!Claude cause there's no team they'd end up on together like with 2015 Worlds  
> \- I'm into aag!Claude now so I might write more to this universe and make it a series  
> \- if I do write more and it involves Sid it'll become chapters for this fic (and if they get their pants off I'll make it M)  
> \- I think that's all I got


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've scrapped the idea of making a series for this AU and am just going to put it all in here because Sid's probably going to end up in every chapter anyways because that's the type of shipper I am. I have half of another chapter written and ideas for four or five others and so right now they're coming out in chronological order, but we'll see how long that lasts. 
> 
> This is another chapter where Sid & Marie-Claude don't take their pants off (cuz things got long), but I do want to give a warning for sexual harassment because I don't believe in leaving shit well enough alone and want to explore what being a woman in the NHL would actually be like on the ground. And hockey dudes are jackasses and I'm already making Sid way nicer than he is in reality so.

Dainius Zubrus battles her against the boards for the puck. “Come on, girlie. Give it up, give it up.”

“No,” she says, trying to push him back with her body and keep her stick on the puck at the same time.

He lets out a frustrated huff. He grabs her around the waist like he’s going to lift her and put her out of the way. “Rub against me all you want it won’t get me off the puck.”

She tries to ignore him and get the puck out, but he’s literally on her back. “Fuck off, creep.”

He laughs at her. “Make me, little girl.”

He then reaches down between her legs to cup her and roughly rub his hand against her. She doesn’t wear a cup like the men do and can feel his hand against her without nearly enough separation. She burns ice cold. She hates when they grab her. It’s offensive, gross, usually painful, and worst of all humiliating. She hates knowing they can touch her in such a way on camera and get away with it. 

She snaps. Something about the time, place, or man, makes this the limit. She forgets about the puck. She twists and turns around and cross-checks Zubrus in the chest. He’s still smiling. She squares up, tightens her grip, and smashes him across the face with her stick.

In a perfect world, her stick’s blade would have broken across his face. He would have gone down and stayed down. The crowd would have gone wild for her and she would raise her arms in victory for them. Hell, she might not have had to hit him to begin with. 

In reality, her blade doesn’t break, but he does go down. The crowd goes silent, probably out of shock. Play stops without the refs having to blow a whistle. 

“You bitch,” he snarls at her even though he’s the one on the ice clutching his face.

“Careful,” she tells him, skating towards his head. “I’m the one that put you down, and I can do it again.”

“Fuck off.”

“Make me,” she says, mimicking him. She stomps down with her skate right beside his neck. He stares up at her in horror. She grins wickedly and skates off. 

A ref comes to guide her off the ice, and she snaps at him, “Piss off. I can walk off on my own.”

She heads off the ice, ignoring her coach and teammates. She heads straight for the women’s locker room. She’ll be suspended, and she's probably cost the Flyers their playoffs run. She can’t find it in her to regret her actions though. 

She feels strangely calm as she undresses. She’s down to her bra and underwear when he phone rings. She checks the ID and sees that it’s her agent.

“Marie-Claude?” he asks when she picks up, and he already sounds completely furious. 

“Yes.”

“Have you gone mad?!” he explodes. “You’ll be suspended at the very least! What on earth possessed you to so blatantly hit him in the face with your stick?”

“He touched me. Groped between my legs,” she explains, not rising to his anger.

He sighs, moving from fury to frustration. “We’ve talked about this. You have to go through the proper channels for that sort of thing.”

“I have been going through proper channels for years. It’s gotten me nothing.”

“That doesn’t mean you hit another player in the face.”

“Players hit each other in the face all the time to get even. How is what I did any different? I gave him a punishment befitting the crime.”

“You’re the only one that thinks that. You do not talk to the media about any of this. I need to start cleaning this mess up and make sure no one starts claiming you’re a goon or women are over emotional or whatever the hell they’ll come up with. Stay out of anymore trouble.”

She makes a non-commital noise because she’ll defend herself to the press if she has to. He stays silent for a moment then sighs again. “I’ll say goodbye so I can try and get ahead of the curve.”

“Bye,” she says because there’s no curve to stay ahead of in a world with a 24/7 news cycle. 

She’s finished showering by the time Coach knocks on the door. “You decent?”

“Hold on a sec,” she says, throwing on a shirt and short. “You’re good.”

Coach is completely red in the face. It takes him a moment to get words out through his anger. “I don’t know what the hell you think you were doing, but you’ve cost us this series. You’re to stay here for the rest of the game, and you won’t be talking to media.”

“Okay.”

He looks surprised, clearly expecting a fight from her. “Okay.”

He leaves, and she starts getting dressed properly. She sits down and waits out the game and the media. She only leaves her hide out in her personal women’s locker room after the media have cleared out. She’s still ahead of most of the guys. She’s fine with that. She doesn’t really want to talk to them because as good of teammates as they are they don’t understand this.

When she's back in her room, she looks for a clip of her strike. It’s one of the first results. It starts with Zubrus practically covering her against the boards. His arm is barely visible and there’s no way to see where his hand is at from the camera angle. She sees him stumble back and then go down. The clip cuts to another angle that’s almost parallel to them and her strike against him is clearly visible. 

She watches the clip over and over again. A vicious sort of pride fills her at the sight of herself finally fighting back. She wishes she’d done it earlier. She wishes she’d done it to every man that’d touched her. She practically cries at the thought of different faces and different jerseys being knocked down in the clip. 

She resists googling the incident beyond watching the clip. The questions she gets asked when she does get back to media will tell her enough. She gets a lot of messages from her fellow female players that are along the lines of ‘I can guess what he did and I wish I’d done what you did.’ Pou just sends her exclamation points. There are a few ‘kick his ass’ messages mixed in. They all make her feel better, and not like she’s gone crazy.

She’s allowed to talk to the media sooner than expected as they allow her to speak with media when they clear out lockers. 

“Was your high-sticking to Zubrus an escalation of your kneeing Crosby?” one reporter asks near immediately.

Marie-Claude suddenly gets the bad sense that she’s become a big topic even though her team has just dropped out of the playoffs. She should ignore the question, but she answers. “No, it wasn’t. They were two separate situations.”

“But there has to be some coincidence,” another reporter picks up. “Most women in the league don’t fight, and you’re well known for avoiding any tussling. Now you’ve gotten a penalty for roughing and been suspended. Is there something going on with you?”

She shrugs. “Yeah, I got fed up. Guys are allowed to fight to settle scores, but all the women are supposed to let things go or let other guys settle them. I decided to dish out punishment on my own.”

“I thought that was an unspoken rule amongst players so that women wouldn’t get hurt in unfair fights against men. Is that wrong?” another reporter asks.

“It is, and that’s why I stay out of fighting. I’d lose the fight against a man nine times out of ten on ice. Most times we actually get told to handle things off ice and file complaints.”

“Filed complaints are only allowed for sexual harassment or abuse though,” a reporter says, one of the few women reporters the Flyers regularly get.

Marie-Claude grins at her because what other reaction can she have that won’t lead to a melt down on camera. “What reason do you think any woman would have for fighting a man? Sure we fight some women on women during international tournaments, but we grew up with women only leagues so we play with skill rather than rough like the boys do. Only sexual harassment or abuse has been enough for any women I know in the league to want to fight a man.”

“Are you suggesting there’s a sexual harassment problem in the NHL?” another guy asks, clearly cutting off the woman’s follow up question. “On ice in front of cameras without anyone knowing.”

Marie-Claude rolls her eyes. “I’m not suggesting it. I’m saying it. You can check all the complaints we’ve made. They’re on record and available. None of the guys playing are dumb enough to do it where any cameras would see, and they’d probably get away with it even if they did it on center ice with how much of a boy’s club the league and fan base is. It’s not like you hear the shit they say about mothers, wives, and girlfriends on ice. It’s disgusting.  _ They’re _ disgusting.”

“So Crosby and Zubrus both sexually harassed you on ice?” another man asks.

“No, separate incidents. I gave Crosby a warning if he didn’t stop trying to wrestle me and followed through. Zubrus groped me so I hit him.”

“How’d he grope you?” the guy asks.

She stares at him for a moment. “Get the fuck out of here. My sexual harassment isn’t for your spank bank, you pervert.”

He doesn't move. “I just wanted logistics like how he could get away with it.”

She points to the door. “I told you it happened, and that’s enough. Go, get the fuck out.”

He leaves, looking confused about what just happened. Marie-Claude notices the one female reporter smiling at him being dismissed and feels reaffirmed in her choice. 

“Any other questions?” Marie-Claude asks to bring the attention back.

The woman holds up her hand. “Why now? You’ve been in the league for three years. Why are you now fighting back and coming forward?”

The men look overly curious about the answer. The woman just looks sad, like she’s well aware of the answer but she needs it in Marie-Claude’s words to be believed. 

“I reached my limit,” she says simply. “I know plenty of other women who reached their limits, some multiple times. They’ve handled it different ways, usually amongst other women because we all know it’s a problem. I decided to handle it my way, or maybe more accurately, in the way men would understand.”

The woman nods. “Thank you.”

Marie-Claude has nothing more to say to them on any topic. “That's all the questions I’ll take, thank you.”

She turns her back to them to make sure they leave, and she finished cleaning out her locker. She finds a couple of the guys hanging around. “What’s up?”

“We over heard some of what you told the reporters,” Danny B says, looking his age and also terribly sad. 

The guys glance amongst each other. Hartsy ends up taking a step forward. “We just feel kinda shitty that we didn’t notice enough. Like we knew some stuff happened, but we should have done better by you. Sorry, G.”

The other guys nod and a jumbled chorus of apologies to her run through them. 

“Thanks guys. I appreciate that.”

It’s nice to know her core is on her side. Danny B steps forward to give her a bro hug. Hartsy ruffles her hair, and most of the others give her pats on the back or shoulders. They leave en masse from the locker room, wishing each other good summers and that they’ll all come back in the fall.

It’s not until she’s alone in her car that she works out the other thing that had kind of set her off. Crosby was a separate incident. Yeah, they said a lot of shit to each other. It had been so far from gross the way chirping from other guys got. Crosby was respectful, and for the most part it bled into his team even if they didn’t have any women this season. She isn’t even the only woman to have noticed. Despite the rivalry, playing the Penguins was always a little reprieve during a rather grueling season. 

Six games straight of it had been fun for Marie-Claude. It was exciting in between all the little bouts of fighting. It was the closest she could get to perfect world hockey in reality. The New Jersey Devils and Zubrus tore right through any enjoyment she could have had.

Halfway home, she realize some dumbass publisher is going to write an inflammatory headline about her accusing Crosby of sexual harassment even though she said he hadn’t. She gets home and calls her agent to tell him to send Crosby a warning that media might start smearing him. It takes her a while to get to that point because he chews her out for ‘revealing internal problems publicly.’ Marie-Claude doesn’t give a shit because she refuses to be named the problem player when she isn’t going around groping people.

“Anything else?” her agent asks.

“No, just tell him I did make it clear he hadn’t harassed me, and that I didn’t mean for him to get dragged into this.”

“Okay, I’ll call back if I get any response.”

“Thanks.”

Her agent calls back an hour or so later. “His agent told me he just says thanks for the warning.”

“Okay, thanks.”

She hangs up and tries not to feel like she had somehow been expecting something more from Crosby.

She sighs and tosses the whole situation aside along with her phone. She has a summer to herself and her training. Doctor’s orders are rest and food before she gets surgery on her wrists. She can’t think of anything better to do than sack out on her couch and watching her favorite show and just not thinking. Hockey and its troubles will come when they come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To lighten the mood: check out this [fantastic pic of Claude](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/aT1-Hi5t2poz3hK85VyHrdzXpvQ=/800x0/filters:no_upscale\(\)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/8856667/3_19_2017_FlyersvsCanes_1st_credKateFrese_29.jpg) I found that works so great for the first chapter
> 
> Also a note about accuracy: for the last chapter I checked box scores for all the games and watched both of the game 3 fights but all the face offs and Sid and Marie-Claude's positionings were totally made up for artistic convenience, and for this chapter Claude was suspended for hitting Zubrus in the head and he totally deserved the suspension and that's the only reason Zubrus was chosen and they weren't battling along the boards when the hit happened
> 
> I don't actually know anything about Zubrus so sorry any Zubrus fans for making him a total dick
> 
> Hope you enjoyed, and the next chapter should be when Sid and Marie-Claude get their pants off


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry about how long it took to get this out. I've literally pulled out like 3k words worth of scenes because I didn't like how it was coming out. This chapter is also only half of what I was planning on doing for the lockout, but I decided to split it up so I could get at least something of it up and to focus on the harder part of it which for me is the smut. I'm the type of writer that always goes for the slow burn so this went against all of my instincts. So just know that I tried really hard.

The night before talks with the NHLPA over the lockout begins in earnest, a group of hockey players who picked business over playing in Europe head out to dinner. Marie-Claude and Marie-Philip Poulin might be the only women from the league, but there were plenty of guys to help boost their numbers. They find a spot that looks accommodating to large groups, and when they are seated, Marie-Claude ends up picking out a seat between Crosby and Pou.

Once their orders are taken, conversations crop up, splitting apart their large group. Marie-Claude turns to Crosby now that she has an opening. “I don’t think this is what you meant when you said you were looking forward to seeing me in the fall.”

Crosby shakes his head, a small smile on his face. “No, not at all.”

“This is probably better though, don’t you think?” she asks. “You’d be going home with a loss otherwise.”

He tilts his head. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

“Why not? You left with a loss last time.”

Pou elbows her and says in French, “I thought we said we weren’t talking shop at dinner.”

“Shop right now is the NHLPA, not games Penguins have lost,” she argues.

Pou gives them a flat look, “There’s only so much you two can say when neither of you won the cup last year.”

Marie-Claude sighs dramatically for Pou’s benefit then offers her hand to Crosby and switches back to English. “Truce?”

“Truce,” he says, smiling as he shakes her hand. “We’ll have time for that kinda talk when we finish the lockout.”

Pou rolls her eyes and goes back to the conversation she’d been having with Toews and a few of the other guys. 

“There is something I wanted to talk to you about,” Crosby says, folding his hands together. “I just wanted to say that I’m, uh, relieved to know that you didn’t think I took the chirping too far in the playoffs.”

She shrugs. “It wasn’t any worse than what I did.”

“Yeah, but it’s not the same when a girl does it to a guy.”

“I suppose so otherwise you boys would put a stop to me chirping you about it.”

He gives her a look. “How many guys have you told that to?”

“Plenty, but you’re the only one who ever came up with a comeback,” she says then gives him a bit of a smirk. “I guess that makes you special.”

“I take pride in being the best at what I do,” he says.

She doesn’t think he’s talking about hockey at all, the way his eyes flick over her body. “How do you know you’re the best? Have you gotten feedback about it?”

“You just said yourself that I was the only one with a response,” he says and gives her a smile. “Besides, I know a thing or two about having a satisfying round.”

She crosses her legs. She isn’t sure how much farther they can get before it stops sounding like they’re talking about hockey at all. The arrival of food saves her from having to really figure it out. Everyone’s quiet for the first few minutes of eating. 

“That’s how you know the food is good,” Toews says, and that gets the group laughing and talking again. Mostly lots of tales of the fun things they got to do over the summer. Marie-Claude brags about her beer pong skills to distract from the injury recovery and PR damage control that actually dominated her summer. 

The following day, everyone meets up again to head over to the NHLPA’s offices. It’s a lot of getting punted around by NHLPA execs in the end. It feels a lot like going over the same five points to Marie-Claude than true strategizing, but she doesn’t know who to express that concern to. Marie-Claude and Marie-Philip go together without the men to meet with several of the managers representing specifically the women in the NHL. Marie-Claude is extremely far from impressed, but she holds her tongue during the meeting.

Pou speaks first once they’re out the door. “That was awful. It’s completely bullshit that these men are representing us.”

“I know. They want to move up the ranks more than they want to help us. They barely even know our concerns,” she says, shaking her head. “I thought we had women representing us at the NHLPA.”

“I thought we did, too, but I guess not anymore.”

“We’ll need to talk to the department head,” Marie-Claude says, suddenly getting a sense of how much of a shit show this could turn into.

“Yeah, we just need to be diplomatic about it, and it’ll be fine.”

It takes them less than ten minutes to find the department head’s secretary, and then twenty minutes to convince her to let them see him. Marie-Claude sits down and can tell immediately that they’re about to get blown off. She lets Pou push the guy as much as she can, but keeps quiet until the end of the meeting. 

“I would have thought that someone in a player’s association would have a better understanding that keeping his job is intimately tied to how happy the players are,” she says as they’re standing to leave. “We won’t forget your behavior during this meeting, and trust me, we’re not happy with it.”

“You’re free to leave,” he says, gesturing to the office door as if he has nothing to fear from her threat. 

“Now what?” Pou asks, back to French. “You basically just said we’re going to get him fired, but how the hell do we do that?”

“We apply pressure,” she says. “Now would be the time. We, I mean, all the women in the NHL have been weakened for so long because we have never been able to strike. They’d just replace us with male AHLers. If no one’s playing though we might be able to force the issue.”

Marie-Philip nods slowly. “If we tie the better representation to getting what we want out of the next CBA it could work. Or if it makes these assholes representing us actually work for us and get us what we want that would be enough for now. We can probably get the Canadian women on board with us fairly easily, but I don’t know about the Americans and the others.”

“We just call Darwitz for the Americans. I’m not sure what we do for the Europeans.”

“Maybe some of the women we bring in will have better contacts than we do.”

“Hopefully.”

“We need to start calling now if we want this to happen in time,” Marie-Philip says. “I’ll draw up a list, and we’ll just go through until it’s done or it’s too late for polite calls.”

“Okay, do you think a proper speech is too formal?”

“Bullet points should be enough, don’t you think?”

“Okay, I’ll do that while you write up the list, and then we make the calls.”

When Marie-Claude looks over the list that evening when she and Pou break for dinner, she sees mostly check marks for those with them and dashes for those deciding from the women they were able to contact. Even the European women they were worried about not wanting to cooperate are mostly on board.

“We might actually be able to do this,” Marie-Claude says, feeling a little lightheaded after the anxiety of the calls combined with her burgeoning hope for success. 

“We need a plan,” Pou says, squinting at their list of names, “but let’s not do this during dinner. We just eat and relax.”

Marie-Claude nods and gathers up the papers. “Yes, we can pick it up again tomorrow.”

They gather their things then head down to the hotel restaurant. There’s a group of their fellow hockey players already seated. They look almost finished with their meal.

“We’ll get a different table,” Pou says, leading the way over to the maitre d’. 

The guys, however, spot them. “Hey, girls, over here,” one says, motioning for them to come over.

Another gets up and asks a waiter for extra chairs. In a matter of moments, Marie-Claude and Marie-Philip are given seats and menus at the already large table. 

“We didn’t want to keep you because it looks like you’re almost finished,” Pou explains, returning to English. 

“Don’t worry. They got good beer.”

The guys laugh. Marie-Claude catches Crosby’s eye from where he’s sitting a few seats down from her. He gives her a smile. She winks at him, and his smile turns into a grin. 

“Where’ve you girls been all evening?” Doan asks after the waiter has taken their orders. 

“Planning,” Pou says then looks to Marie-Claude as if asking if they should say more. 

“We have a bit of a problem with the women’s side of the CBA,” she explains. “We have three major issues; equal pay, maternity leave, and female staff, and the idiots we met with today couldn’t name any one of the three.”

“So we’re going to get them fired,” Pou says. “Or something like that.”

One of the guys whistles at how astounding the list is.

“I do remember how pissed all the women were after the last CBA,” Doan says. “Good luck.”

“Thanks, but we could use a break from talking about it,” Marie-Claude says. 

“Sure,” Toews says with a shit eating grin. “We could talk about something less stressful like politics. Anyone following the presidential election?”

“Fuck no, we’re Canadian, I refuse to participate,” St. Louis grumbles and finishes off his beer. 

“Best reality TV show this year?” Parros offers, and they all laugh.  

The dinner is a nice reprieve, but they’re all back into suits by the next morning. 

The days pass both excruciatingly slowly and shockingly fast. They meet with various executives within the NHLPA, discuss the women’s situation with her agent and Pou’s agent, and go over the details between themselves and the other female players. Checking every word and argument for the right effect lengthens every second until she looks up and finds hours have passed. Pou looks just as worse for wear with circles under her eyes beginning to set in and several instances of nodding off in the middle of the afternoon. 

“I need a break,” Marie-Claude says late one evening after taking dinner in their hotel room. She pulls away from the table, her laptop, everything.

“‘Kay,” Pou says then yawns. “I’m gonna sleep.”

Marie-Claude leaves her things in Pou’s room like she has been doing and heads down to the hotel bar. The place is empty the way only hotel bars can be. She orders a beer and focuses on relaxing. A few sips in, she decides she doesn’t want to relax. She wants out of her own head. 

She has a few options for what she can do about that. She pulls out her phone and goes for the interesting one. She texts Crosby, one of the many new numbers she’s picked up from this whole mess, and sends him,  **Hey** . 

He doesn’t respond for a few minutes then she gets,  **Hey** . 

She licks her lips and responds,  **Got a question for you** . 

**What is it?**

**When you said you were looking forward to seeing me in the fall, did that include anything off ice?**

He doesn’t respond immediately, and it kills her to not see his face. If he’d glance down at her or blush, maybe take a step closer. 

**Only if you want it to** .

Of course she wants it to right now, maybe even during the playoffs, but she wants to hear it in his voice. That he wants it just as much as her but is pushing for her to come reach for it, daring her to catch him. She doesn’t want him coy or polite. 

He then sends her a number and tells her,  **youre lucky theres no road roomies here** . 

She chugs the rest of her beer because coy isn’t already expecting her to come up.  **Youre the lucky one you wouldnt like what id say to get your roomie out** . 

**I thought good girls took boys home to their mothers** . 

She laughs and goes to pay for her beer. She takes the elevator up and looks for Cros’ room. She knocks, and he opens the door quickly. 

“Hey,” he says, acting like he even had a chance in hell of appearing smooth. He already has some color in his cheeks, and he’s just too quick. 

“Hey,” she says. She walks forward, and he moves back only enough to get her in the door. He’s dressed casually, and she guesses he’s been doing work from the hotel room just like she has. She reaches for the hem of his shirt and asks, “Does chirping always turn you on or am I special?”

“I think you already know the answer to that.”

She grins and starts walking him towards the bed. He puts up resistance, just enough that she has to put her hands flat against his chest to get him to move. He’s definitely smirking at her. 

“So, Cros,” she says when she gets him backed up on the bed. “You wanna lick my clit?”

“There’s just no foreplay with you,” he says, shaking his head then kissing her. 

She kisses back eagerly, but she doesn’t waste her time in getting her hands under his shirt. He’s right. She doesn’t want foreplay, not tonight and not from him. She just wants his mouth on her and for him to be something she can push against.

Cros doesn’t play fair, not out on the ice, and he doesn’t change in the bedroom. He works to frustrate her, slowing down the faster she tries to push him. She peels his clothes off, and he takes his sweet time sliding hers off. He pays special attention to her breasts once she gets them down onto the bed even though she whines and pushes at him to move onto her clit. 

“C’mon, Cros,” she says, tugging on his hair when he insists on kissing up along the inside of her thighs. He nips her thigh, looking directly at her as he does it. 

She gasps when he finally,  _ finally _ , does put his mouth on the right spot. He’s completely relentless in eating her out, like the path to the cup is straight through her clit. Normally, she has to beg guys to get to just the right spot and go that much harder and that much faster, but with Cros her hand on his head is enough, pressing when she presses and going harder when she clenches her fingers in his hair. Instead of giving out instructions, she pants and tries to muffle any sounds because this is still a hotel and still Cros. 

When she comes, it’s exactly what she wanted and a better orgasm than any she’s gotten from a man before. She can’t stop her legs from shaking, and she has to release Cros. She looks at him as she comes back down and realizes that he had watched her as she came. The sight of him flushed, wide eyed, and mouth wet from her and still between her thighs will be in the back of her mind every time she looks at him from now on. 

“Good?” he asks as he pulls away from her. She nods because she can’t find her voice. 

She doesn’t expect it when he moves up to put his face down between her breasts and wipe his mouth off there. She gasps and suddenly she can find her voice again. “What was that for?”

“Being pushy,” he says then laughs so that’s not the real answer. He kisses her a few times. “Is this the part where you suck my dick?”

“No,” she says, pushing at him until he rolls over onto his back with a sigh. 

“That doesn’t seem very fair,” he says, but he doesn’t sound very broken up about it. 

“Too bad,” she says then moves to straddle his hips. It’s maybe not the most conventional way to jack a guy off, but it gives them something to look at while she does it, at least. She barely has her hand on his dick for more than second before he covers her hand with his, like he doesn’t trust her to get him off. 

Their hands moving together over his dick mesmerizes her for a moment. He forces her to grip him tighter than she would have on her own. She doesn’t know what makes her want to kiss him, but she leans over and does it anyways. She has to arch her back to give their hands room, but the tighter space doesn’t seem to bother Cros any. He comes soon enough, and she makes sure to continue stroking him through it even as his hand falls away from hers. 

Afterwards, it seems too quiet and too close with only their loud breathing between them. She gives him one last quick kiss then climbs off of him. 

“What’re you doing?” he asks. 

She finds her panties and pulls them back on before answering. “What’s it look like?”

He gives her a weird look. “You’re not even going to clean up before going?”

“I’m going to my own hotel room, not driving home,” she says rolling her eyes. She puts her pants on before she finds her bra. 

“Okay,” he says, but he doesn’t sound it. 

She sighs and goes back to him, giving him another kiss. She can smell herself on his face. “Don’t worry. You weren’t bad.”

“Then why the rush?” he asks. 

“I’m not rushing, just leaving.”

He huffs like he has the argument, but not the words for it. “Fine, your way then this time.”

She pulls away from him to get her shirt back on. “This time? You think this is going to happen again?”

“Yeah,” he says, explaining nothing to her as he gets up from the bed and heads into the bathroom. He leaves the door open. 

He barely acknowledges her when she tells him she’ll see him later and leaves. 

In the morning, Marie-Claude is back to discussing public reception with her agents and Pou. The female journalists are all over their side and touting their lines through to the fans. Unfortunately, male journalists still outnumber the female ones by a large margin. They barely seem to have noticed yet. It feels like fighting the tide. 

“We need more women,” Pou complains. 

“We don’t have them so we need a different plan,” Marie-Claude says. The same conversation they’ve already had a hundred times. 

Pou’s phone goes off, distracting them. Marie-Claude’s sure hers has gone off as well, but she put it on silent and tossed it aside some time ago. Pou scans the message. “Holy shit.”

“What is it?” Marie-Claude asks, moving to look over her shoulder.

“They’ve got rumours about replacing the department head we all know and hate,” Pou says excitedly, nearly smacking Marie-Claude with how quickly she turns around. “The short list of replacements are all women!”

“No way,” she says, stunned for a moment. Then she grabs Pou’s phone to get a better look at it. 

“It’s working,” Pou says excitedly. 

“It really is. This is incredible,” she says. 

Unfortunately, the one step forward apparently came with two steps back. Their formerly quiet pleas suddenly found a backlash for supposedly kicking a qualified man out of his job. Marie-Claude scoffed at the notion the department head could be considered qualified. Then came all the legal issues with actually firing the man due to his contract. 

“So there’s not anything we can do?” Marie-Claude asks her agent over speaker phone with Pou listening and sitting at her side. 

“Not at the moment,” she says with a long suffering sigh. “Let the lawyers do their job. They know he’s unqualified so it’s just a matter of going through the legal process for firing him. As for the backlash, that’s PR and media’s job.”

Pou makes a perturbed noise. “We’re so useless where it counts.”

“Everyone has a part to play. We wouldn’t have even gotten here if you hadn’t brought it up in the first place. This is still a victory.”

“Thanks,” Marie-Claude says, trying hard not to sound sarcastic as she says it. “Let us know when there’s anything else we can do.”

She ends the call and leans back with a sigh. She shares a glance with Pou. 

“Montreal next,” Pou reminds her as they only have one night left in their New York hotel. “Get some practice in until the NHLPA calls us back in again.”

Marie-Claude can’t wait to get back out on the ice. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed cheesby finally getting their pants off. I will hopefully be updating much more quickly from now on. I also did my best to find names of players who were involved with the NHLPA during the lockout and it was not easy at all. So take it all with a grain of salt.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You'll probably understand why this took so long to get out once you finish reading this chapter. I went back and forth so much on how I wanted this to go and rewrote a few sections.

“It’s no Ottawa,” Marie-Claude tells Marie-Philip after they finish up their first practice. “But it’ll do.”

Pou squints at her. “Are you insulting my city?”

She shrugs. “It’s better than Pittsburgh.”

“That’s not a compliment,” she says, and points to the tunnel. “Get out.”

“Au revoir,” she says, skating for the exit. Normally, she might stay out on the ice longer, but she doesn’t see a reason to without an NHL schedule bearing down on her. She changes out of her hockey equipment then hits the facility’s gym. Marie-Philip joins her after a few minutes, and they work out together in silence. 

She makes it a week before sighing heavily and leaning against Marie-Philip while watching TV together. “Can I complain?”

“Sure.”

“I’m speaking like more French than I have in years, hanging out with more awesome ladies than I have in ages, but I’m still not happy,” she says pouting. 

“Yeah, no hockey sucks,” she agrees, resting her head against Marie-Claude’s.

“And I want my own team back.”

Pou rolls her eyes. “You’re only an A.”

“I know,” she says rolling her eyes. “It’s not about the letter, it’s about having my dumb boys.”

“I get it,” she agrees. “Wish we could have two teams more often than the Olympics. One team with all the ladies, and then our dumb boys teams.”

“But nobody pays to see all women’s teams,” she says rolling her eyes.

“They do when we win gold.”

“You ever think they were wrong for fighting to get into the NHL instead of making our own league? None of the other leagues did this,”

“We get paid better than the women in women’s only leagues, but there are fewer of us, and we still get paid less than men,” she says then sighs. “I don’t know. They picked what they did. We just have to keep going.”

“Wisely spoken,” Marie-Claude teases because she’s had many discussions with many women both in the league and without about this. Usually the discussion ends on a much more frustrated note.

“Thanks,” she says, lifting her head up. 

“Good talk,” Marie-Claude says, sitting up right as well.

They both burst out laughing

* * *

They return to New York far sooner than Marie-Claude would have liked. Actually, she’d prefer to be going to Philly, but if the NHLPA thinks her presence will help make that happen, okay. It also means going back to dealing with the short list for the new department head. She feels exhausted just thinking about it.

She and Pou keep their conversations away from the lockout during their trip back as well as through getting settled at the hotel. It’s only when they’re going through the lobby to head out for dinner, and she spots Crosby that she remembers what else she’d been doing in New York.

He’s standing with a few of the other guys, and she nudges Pou and points them out, “Want to see if they’ll join us?”

“Sure,” Pou says, and Marie-Claude leads the way over to them.

She lays her hand on Cros’ arm to announce her arrival. “Hey.”

He turns towards her and smiles. “Hey,” he says back just as easily.

His quick glance over her and the way he tilts his head when he catches her smirk is enough to confirm that she’ll have him in her bed after dinner. She turns to the rest of the group. “We wanted to see if you boys would join us for dinner.”

St Louis smiles, “I think that sounds great.”

“We were thinking we’d go for something simple and stay close by,” Pou adds.

“Let’s go then,” Parros says, clapping his hands together once before leading the way out the door.

On the way to the restaurant, Cros walks in step with Marie-Claude and his hand on her back because he is a good boy after all. Pou walks with St. Louis ahead of them and looks back every so often to give Marie-Claude significant looks. Marie-Claude rolls her eyes at her.

The food at the restaurant they end up at is good, and Marie-Claude ends up spending very little time talking to Cros despite sitting next to him.They both choose other conversations to participate in across the table, but every so often they catch each other’s eyes. They give each other little half smiles, giving a little demonstration of their anticipation for after the meal, before shifting back to their own conversations.

Marie-Claude walks with Pou on the way back to the hotel, discussing a show they’d been watching before coming back to New York. Cros walks a few steps behind them with Toews, and Marie-Claude can feel his eyes on her back.  They all get into the elevator together as a large group. Toews gets off first.

Cros follows her off the elevator with Pou. She does a double take. “Aren’t you on a different floor?” she asks him.

“Yes,” he answers and doesn’t elaborate.

“Oh,” she says with some confusion then glances at Marie-Claude. “Oh.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Pou,” Marie-Claude tells her, putting a hand on her shoulder and giving her a quick kiss on her cheek.

Pou clearly wants to ask a million questions, but all she says is, “Okay, see you tomorrow. Goodnight, Crosby.”

“Goodnight,” Cros says.

Pou leaves them for her room, and they continue down the hall to Marie-Claude’s. “You didn’t tell her?” Cros asks as she unlocks the door to her room.

She shrugs. “It didn’t come up. We’ve been busy with a few other things, you know.”

Cros nods and follows her into her room. She only gets as far as taking her coat off before he’s kissing her. He goes slow again, kissing her deeply like this is as far as they’ll go, and she lets him. Lets him cradle her head in his hands and just rests her hands on his chest.

She’s not a very patient woman though, and she pulls back to ask, “Is that all you’ve got?”

He rolls his eyes at her. “You know it’s not.”

“Oh,” she says and shrugs quickly. “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t in a slump or something.”

He sighs as if she were trying his patience, but he wouldn’t be here if he didn’t like it. “I can score just fine.”

“Then come on,” she says, pulling him down to kiss again. He slides his hands down her back and grabs at her ass so she nips his lower lip. “So about that seat on your jaw, you never did answer.”

He laughs. “I’m not dumb enough to give you that much leverage.”

She scoffs. “You’re not any fun.”

“Are you sure fun’s what you want from me?” he asks, sliding a hand between her legs. It’s almost embarrassing that it feels good to her rather than like some sort of clumsy groping. Probably because he knows to slide his hand along her rather than just grab at her like most guys do.

“A little fun always helps,” she says.

He kisses her again, and more importantly, he doesn’t try to slow her down when she starts pulling clothes off. Their second time together isn’t wholly dissimilar from their first. She’s less antsy to get him moving quickly because she knows he can eat her out like a champ. This time, he adds his fingers to the mix, and she lets him set the pace for getting him off. 

“You can take the bathroom first,” she says, smirking.

“How kind of you,” he says, rolling his eyes because she’d made sure all his come landed on him. She figured if men made the mess, they could clean it up. He still kissed her before he gets up from the bed. She stretches and gets her clothes into a pile before he finishes and she can clean herself up.

Marie-Claude comes out of the bathroom to find Cros still naked and on her bed. He seems perfectly comfortable there as well with one leg bent and a hand behind his head and the other resting on his stomach. He looks like a Greek god out of a Renaissance painting, and she hates herself a little bit for thinking that.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

“Waiting for you,” he says, looking at her like it should have been obvious. “It’s good we picked your room this time so you won’t run off right after.”

“I didn’t run.”

He rolls his eyes then amends, “Left quickly.”

“I left when we finished which is what one night stands are supposed to do,” she says, shooting him a pointed look for still taking up half her bed. “Saying I ran makes it sound like I was afraid, and I wasn’t. If you wanted a second round you should have told me before we got cleaned up.”

“One night means staying the night which you didn’t do. If you  _ want _ a second round I’m not going to say no, but I didn’t plan it.”

“So why are you still on my bed?” she asks, stepping forward and tugging on the bed sheet like she could roll him off of it.

“I told you, I was waiting for you.”

“You said you didn’t mean for a second round,” she says, frowning at him.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want other things,” he says, now shifting in position to sit at the edge of the bed and face her, putting his hands on her waist.

“Like what?”

He sighs, “You’re impossible. You don’t like foreplay or anything afterwards. I’ve never met a woman who didn’t.”

“You must not have met many women,” she says, the chirp slipping out automatically. “And it’s not that I don’t like it.”

“Then what is it?”

She considers what to say for a moment then tells him. “I don’t want it from you.”

“Oh so I’m the problem,” he says, and his tone is teasing, like this admission doesn’t matter but he looks confused. “Good enough for sex but not foreplay? I’d think it’d be the other way around.”

She shakes her head and doesn’t know what to tell him because they shouldn’t be having this conversation. What doesn’t he understand about just having sex? “Isn’t it obvious?”

“If you like it why not do it and enjoy it?”

Marie-Claude suddenly thinks of those sound bites she’s heard from him about getting to play the game he loves every day as if all the politics and money and just plain old problems melt away in the face of that. As if it were so simple.  She’s dealing with a man that doesn’t restrain himself from his enjoyment. Marie-Claude doesn’t know if she’s ever lived a day of her life unrestrained. 

“To some of us it matters who we get it from.”

“I understand that,” he says, and he’s surprisingly gentle about it. “What I don’t understand is why one and not the other. They all kind of go together into a bigger thing, don’t they?”

“I suppose you could say that,” she says with a sigh wondering how the hell they ended up in this conversation. They were just supposed to have sex. Really good, hot sex, that actually involved having proper attention on her clit. She then realizes that she’s resting her hands on his forearms, making it so that he’s not the only on reaching for connection. “But I didn’t really think we were the sort of people for that.”

“I think you mean you and not we.”

She huffs in frustration. “I mean we because we should have just played a game Flyers versus Penguins and had sex and been done with this. Not be still stuck here in New York for a lockout. Would you still want all of those things with me if it had been like that?”

“Yeah, probably,” he says with a laugh, and she wants to shove a pillow into his face. “I want them because of you not because we’re in a lockout. That’d be weird.”

She casts her eyes to the ceiling, half asking for the Lord to grant her mercy, and then leans in to kiss him. Anything to stop this ridiculous conversation. Because it’s easier to kiss him than kick him out. Because she did want to kiss him again. Fuck it, she likes this, maybe even likes him, and what’s wrong with taking pleasure where she can find it?

He guides her back into her bed, curling up around her, and she responds likewise. He kisses her softly for some time before he hums like he’s thought of something funny. 

“What?” she asks.

“You’re such a liar.”

She punches his chest, and she knows for a fact it doesn’t hurt with them being in such close quarters, but he still says, “Ow.”

“I am not,” she insists. 

“I’m just calling it like it is,” he insists, pulling her towards him so she doesn’t have the room to try and hit him again. “You say you don’t want anything more than sex from me, but you never did ask me to leave.”

She runs their conversation over in her head and realizes that he’s right. She feels her cheeks heat and she must flush brilliantly because he laughs.

“Now I’m telling you to leave,” she says, but of course he doesn’t listen. She wouldn’t in his place. 

She lets him stay the night or at least, doesn’t stop kissing him enough to tell him to leave. She wakes up and doesn’t know what to do. She’s rarely ever slept literally with a man she wasn’t dating and none of them have been hockey players before Cros. She feels she’s crossed a line and can’t tell if that’s good or bad.

Cros wakes while she’s lost in her thoughts and he curls an arm around her waist and starts kissing her neck. She sighs, sets her thoughts aside, and then leans into Cros. 

Pou stares at her for a long considering moment over breakfast. Not in a judgey sort of way, more in a checking things are all good sort of way. Marie-Claude asks, “Any news?”

Pou stops staring and says, “Nothing yet.”

And things are fine. Fine in that the lockout is terrible, but the women are starting to see results for their efforts, and fine in that she and Cros continue to have sex, each round longer and more intimate than the last. Not just for the sex that they have but for how long they stay together after and how much they talk during and after. It’s not just that Cros knows how she looks naked in orgasm anymore, but that he also knows how she looks having a midnight snack in a soft baggy tee. The midnight snacks are his fault. It’s insane and the only thing keeping her okay about it is telling herself it’s just for the lockout and she’s just having fun.

* * *

 

Marie-Claude stretches before sitting down next to Pou and readying herself for a day of responding to interview requests and other emails. Pou gives her a look. “What are you stretching for? We haven’t really done any hard core skating or exercising or anything.”

She shrugs. “It’s not from the skating.”

Pou’s eyes widen and she leans in towards her. “Are you still sleeping with Crosby?”

“Yeah,” she says with a nod. 

“I didn’t think you were that into him.”

“Oh, I’ve absolutely been that into him the entire time.”

“Really? I missed that,” she says. “I think he’s nice and all, but I don’t know if he’s that hot.”

“That’s why I’m sleeping with him and you’re not,” she argues. “Besides he could be ugly as fuck the way he eats me out.”

“Oh, God, G,” she says, leaning away. 

“What? He’s the first guy to eat me out well enough or enough times or something that I got oversensitive.”

“Okay, wow, he’s way nicer than I thought if he’d go down that much on you.”

“Hey,” she says, punching Pou’s arm. 

“I don’t need to know all that much about your sex life. I was just wondering what your deal was with him.”

“We get along and have a lot of sex, that’s the deal with him,” she says, though that’s definitely simplifying things. 

Pou gets a look about her before glancing back at her laptop screen. Marie-Claude knows exactly what she’s thinking. “Oh, please no. I was hoping to avoid that.”

“But, c’mon, G,” she says gently. “You know we could use his support. He could get a lot of people on our side. Between the two of us, you’re the one he’s more likely to listen to.”

“I know,” she says, snappish, but then she calms herself. “I know. I just wanted to avoid it even if I know I couldn’t.”

“We’ve got basically all the women there is to get between players, admin, coaching, press. We’re making movement, but it would help a lot to have a push from him,” she says, exactly everything Marie-Claude’s already thought of and feared. 

“I know. I guess I shouldn’t have slept with him,” she admits. She’s not the first woman to enter a relationship with a fellow player, but nobody else did it while in a lockout and trying to make politics happen. Nobody did it with Wayne Gretzky as far as she knows either. 

“I know you’re uncomfortable with it, but it’s not the worst position you could be in,” she says with a shrug. “Any chance you’ve done Ovechkin?”

Marie-Claude nearly chokes. “No, he’s, wow, he’s too much. Why don’t you put your sex life on the line for politics and do Ovechkin?”

“I can’t,” she says with a bright smile. “He’s in Russia.”

“So don’t talk.”

She holds up her hands, but she’s still laughing a little as she returns to their work. Marie-Claude tries to ignore the task she’s assigned herself to get all the easier stuff done. God, why Sid? It’s dumb to ask because he wouldn’t be Sid if he wasn’t the best, and she wouldn’t give him a chance if he wasn’t him. Fuck, she hopes this doesn’t blow up on her. 

She doesn’t say anything to Sid, but he knows something is up as soon as they meet for dinner. He gives her a look, but doesn’t press when she doesn’t say right away. It takes her nearly half the meal for her to bring it up. 

“Pou and I have been talking with our agents and the other women, and we think we need to change tactics a little bit,” she says as diplomatically as she can.

“And by that you mean?” he asks, like he doesn’t already know what she was getting at.

“We think it would help our position to have some of the male players support us.”

His mouth twists. “So you’re asking me.”

“If you know anyone better to ask, please point them out,” she says, trying her best to stay professional. “You’re Sidney Crosby. Where you go others will follow. You’re already here when you could be playing in Europe.”

“As one of many,” he says tightly. “I know who I am, but I’m not out to make some sort of political statement like you are.”

“A political statement? It’s hardly anything more than showing up to help the NHLPA. We’re also part of the NHLPA. We also deserve to have ourselves properly represented and get what we need out of the next CBA.”

“I know, my issue is with you asking me like this and wanting me to make a statement on it,” he says, and his face is hard. “I can’t be drawn into every little shitshow that goes on in the NHL, and I haven’t forgotten what you did at the end of last season. My agent and I have worked hard to keep everything as neutral as possible so I’m not trashed at every possible turn which happens anyways. I especially don’t like that you’re making it personal.”

“What on earth are you saying?” she asks because she feels like she’s completely lost the thread. “Did you want a formal email from me and Pou or something? This isn’t personal at all. We decided I would ask you because I know you better than she does, nothing more.”

He glares at her. “That’s exactly the problem. You’re using our private lives to try and get me to take your position in public. It certainly doesn’t help that you’ve already painted a target on yourself in the press. What possible incentive is there for me to align myself publically with you?”

Marie-Claude feels so much fury she feels as if she’s been doused in ice, and however angry Sid is, she’s sure she feels it ten fold. “Do you think I slept with you to try and get you on our side? Do you think I’m some dirty little secret? Why even sleep with me if you think I’m such a goddamn problem? I just thought you were a feeling human being who gave a single solitary fuck about me or any of your fellow players. Is it really so awful that we ask to be treated as well as the men are? I wasn’t asking you to throw yourself out in front of the press, just that you say to the other men here that they should support their fellow players. I never realized you were such a coward, too scared of rocking the boat to do one single decent thing. No, clearly this was my mistake. I shouldn’t have asked you anything because I don’t know you at all, and I certainly should have never slept with you.”

She gets up from her seat and makes to leave.

“Marie-Claude,” he says, grabbing her wrist as she passes him.

“Don’t touch me!” she snaps, wrenching her hand away from him. “I never want to see you again.”

She storms out of the restaurant, too angry to stay a minute longer even just to put her coat on. The cold wind outside stings and she fubles to put on her coat. She refuses to slow down because once she does she’ll stop being angry. She walks back to the hotel, and taking the elevator finally forces the horribleness of it to sink it and the hurt starts to rise. She bangs on Pou’s hotel room door, trying to recapture the anger. 

“Whoa, what happened?” Pou asks when she finally gets the door open.

“Crosby is an asshole,” she says, struggling to get out of her coat which she now realizes she’d zipped wrong. “He’s too much of a coward to do anything. He acted like us trying to get proper representation was some shitty sideshow to the lockout. That I was, like, prostituting myself out to him to get him on our side. What kind of an asshole even says that?”

“Marie-Claude,” she says, sounding so heartbrokenly sympathetic. 

“It was dumb,” she says, shaking her head then going back to trying to get her coat off. She nearly rips off her nail trying to get it to unzip.

“I wouldn’t have asked you to do that if I’d known,” she says. “I thought it would just be awkward at worst. I didn’t think-,”

“It’s not your fault,” she says, finally getting her coat unzipped with am ugly, grating noise. “I didn’t know either. How could you have?”

“Are you okay?”

Marie-Claude sits down in the arm chair. The man she has been sleeping with, more than that, sharing late nights and secrets with, couldn’t give a shit about her or her career. She shakes her head in wonder. “I don’t think I’ve ever fucked up so badly before.”

“I’m so sorry,” she says, and she says it with so much feeling that this insanity finally hits home for Marie-Claude. 

“I’m fine,” she says, even as tears start to fall and Pou hands her the box of tissues. “It doesn’t matter.”

The following day, Marie-Claude focuses on her work with the NHLPA, and she doesn’t see Sidney Crosby at all. It’s the kindest thing he’s ever done to her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So apparently my answer to the question is it really cheesby if Sid hasn't done something totally shitty to Claude is no. This is also an actual for real problem with Sidney Crosby. He'll choose to make wishy washy non-statements even when teammates with more to lose take actual stances on an issue. Probably wouldn't be an issue because it's not like Claude has a stellar record either, but in this AU with a genderbend it would definitely be a deal breaker. 
> 
> Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the update, and I plan to have at least one more chapter for this. I might also get up the other fics I have started for this universe some day eventually.


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